New Delhi, May 8

Senior commanders of the Indian Navy began a four-day conclave here on Tuesday to discuss combat efficiency and military preparedness of the blue water force amid worries about an assertive China encircling India with its military and strategic assets in the Indian Ocean region and its neighbourhood.

The first edition of this year’s bi-annual Naval Commanders’ Conference is being held to review the Navy’s new “mission-based deployments philosophy that is aimed at ensuring peace and stability in the region”, a Navy spokesperson said.

“The Indian Navy’s focus over the past year has been on combat efficiency and materiel readiness and upkeep of its large fleet of 131 ships and submarines.” The spokesperson didn’t speak about China creating military and strategic assets in India’s close neighbourhood like in Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Maldives and Sri Lanka who have all signed up to Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

But the looming presence of Chinese warships on the high seas in the Indian Ocean has left India a lot worried, scurrying for strategic bases overseas—like the one New Delhi is now set to establish in the archipelago of Seychelles with which it signed a pact to build naval infrastructure in February this year.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who inaugurated the May 8-11 conference, said the Indian “Navy will be a force to reckon with in the Indo-Pacific” region.

She parried a question on Chinese ubiquitous presence in the region including a deep-sea port at Gwadar in Pakistan and the establishment of a naval base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

Asked about India’s border and maritime competitiveness with China, the Defence Minister said “there is no tension between” the two neighbours.

Probed further and asked what had militarily changed between India and China following official visits to China by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and by herself, Sitharaman said: “We are talking and meeting each other. That is a big change.”  She said she had “a very pointed discussion on the issues raised by the (Navy) commanders” who were open-minded about the issues concerning the Navy and in highlighting India’s maritime strength.

The conclave would also review the measures to ensure safety, continued training and checks and balances on crew proficiency on-board the Navy’s frontline warships.

The spokesperson said the Navy had been at the forefront in the absorption and exploitation of cutting-edge technology.

As such, the “Naval commanders will deliberate upon steps to improve the teeth-to-tail ratio and explore niche fields such as Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics” during the conference, he said.

The Navy’s initiatives to enhance indigenous defence industrial capability extending up to the micro small and medium enterprises are also likely to be covered during the conclave.

Currently, 27 ships and submarines are under construction in Indian shipyards. These include the first indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant.

The Navy has already promulgated the ‘Indian Naval Indigenisation Plan 2015-30’, laying down its 15-year plan. IANS

By the time Vladimir Putin ends his fresh term as President of Russia, he would have controlled the Kremlin for an unprecedented 25 years. A man the West loves to loath, Putin’s years at the rudder have seen Russia making a significant turn from the Europeanism that guided the two terms of Boris Yeltsin’s unpredictable and whimsical rule.  Weary of poverty and lawlessness, Russian welcomed the arrival of Putin but that’s where its relationship with the West plummeted. Apart from Germany, Russia has few friends in the trans-Atlantic alliance and is now at the receiving end of an intense campaign to restrict its area of influence.India leveraged West’s antagonism towards Putin in a variety of ways, mainly by transfer of high-tech Russian technology and deepening its energy relationship that began only after the end of the Cold War. That window seems to be closing with the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSA). US President Donald Trump believes the Act is flawed but that perception has not stopped the legislation from casting a shadow on high-end Russian arms export to India such as the S 400 anti-missile defence, the developing trilateral transport partnership between Russia, Iran and India or the burgeoning relationship in oil that has made the Russian Rosneft the biggest FDI investor in India. Putin owes his power to the St Petersburg elite whose historical and cultural impetuses push it for a closer relationship with Europe. But the Kremlin now believes that its destiny is with Asia. India has to be creative to address the future problems that may arise from CATSA in order to make the most from Russia’s pivot towards Asia. Despite its dalliance with Pakistan, Russia too is aware that its interests will be better served by a balance between India and the Sino-Pakistan alliance. There is much that suggests Russia may be a declining power. Despite several structural weaknesses, it has always bounced back because of its geopolitical location, resource potential and great power tradition. Russia bez Putina (Russia without Putin) is not yet a foreseeable possibility and India needs to make the most of that.

Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 25

It might sound absurd but the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) takes longer time to finalise the tendering process for procurement of fresh ration for its personnel than the period for which it is to be supplied — courtesy red tape.However, the ITBP attributes the delay in procurement of fresh ration, including vegetables, fruits, fresh milk (tetra packs), meat, chicken and eggs, to cumbersome “procedures” that are required to be followed before finalising the tenders.According to sources, the Station Headquarters (SHQ), ITBP, based in Ladakh, issued a notification regarding an e-tender on January 16 this year for procurement of fresh ration for six months (from March 1, 2018 to August 31, 2018) for its 47th Battalion at Rae camp in Samba district.“The tendering process was to be completed in February so that the successful bidder could supply fresh ration from March 1 but it did not happen that resulted in the cancellation of the tender,” a source said.The source claimed the ITBP did the same thing last year when the SHQ had issued three tenders for the supply of fresh ration for six months for the Samba unit.“The first notification was issued on February 23, 2017. The second notification was issued on April 13, 2017,” the source said, adding that the third tender was floated on June 2, 2017. “As per the record available on e-tender website, the tender was not even finalised till August last year and what happened thereafter we don’t know,” the source said, adding, “Complaints were made to the Union Home Ministry as it was not clear whether the ITBP personnel were served fruits and vegetables for the period.” When contacted, Jaipal Yadav, Deputy Inspector General (DIG), ITBP, SHQ, Ladakh, said the finalisation of tenders was delayed because they were bound “to follow the laid down procedures.”“It mandatory for us to follow the procedures for the finalisation of the tendering process. This year, the tender has been cancelled because documents of bidders were incomplete,” the DIG said.He also rejected the allegations that the ITBP personnel remained without fresh ration, vegetables, fruits and meat until the tenders were finalised last year. “The commandant of the unit was authorised to set up a purchase committee to get the fresh ration from local market,” Yadav said while accusing contractors of unleashing this “propaganda.”“These contractors are basically ‘badmash’ (goons). There are adverse reports against them and how can they say that personnel were not getting ration. This is a propaganda,” the DIG said, adding that they also wrote several “false letters” to malign the image of the force.“If we do anything wrong, the audit people will grill us,” he said.

Tender cancelled

The Station Headquarters, ITBP, based in Ladakh, issued a notification regarding an e-tender on January 16 this year for procurement of fresh ration for six months (from March 1, 2018 to August 31, 2018) for its 47th Battalion at Rae camp in Samba district. The tendering process was to be completed in February so but it did not happen that resulted in the cancellation of the tender

For representation only. The skull of Havildar Alum Bheg had been brought to England by Captain A R Costello, who was on duty when he was executed after the revolt. File photo

London, April 15

A British historian wants the skull of an Indian soldier who was among those executed after the revolt of 1857 against the East India Company to be repatriated to India and buried where he participated in his last battle.

Dr Kim Wagner, Senior Lecturer in British Imperial History at Queen Mary College in London, believes the time is right for Havildar Alum Bheg—a principal leader of the revolt, which the British characterise as a sepoy mutiny—to be buried in his country of birth.

His skull had been brought to England by Captain A R Costello, who was on duty when Alum Bheg was executed after the revolt in India. It was discovered years later in a pub in the eastern English coastal town of Walmer in Kent.

“His regiment was originally raised at Kanpur, but my suggestion would be for his skull to be buried near the Ravi River, at the border between India and Pakistan, where we know Alum Bheg participated in the Battle of Trimmu Ghat,” said Wagner, the author of ‘The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857’, which was released recently.

“I don’t perceive of the repatriation of Alum Bheg’s skull as a political PR exercise. My focus is simply on returning the remains of Alum Bheg to what was once his homeland so that he can be put to rest—160 years after he died,” he adds.

The historian has triggered “tentative discussions” on the issue with diplomats in India and the UK, but acknowledges that these things take time and does not expect a resolution in the immediate future.

His journey to researching and writing the book on the 1857 revolt around the story of Bheg’s tragic killing began in 2014 when he was contacted by the family who had come into possession of the skull.

In 1963, the new owner of The Lord Clyde pub discovered the skull stowed away in a small storeroom. Inserted in the eye-socket was a handwritten note that briefly outlined the skull’s history. The note revealed that the skull belonged to an Indian soldier in the service of the East India Company named Alum Bheg, who was accused of murdering an entire family of Scottish missionaries.

He was captured and executed by being blown from a cannon. Capt. Costello, an Irish officer serving with the East India Company, brought it back to England as a kind of war trophy but how it eventually ended up in the pub in the coastal town of Deal remains unknown.

“My research revealed several surprising discoveries, not least of which was that Alum Bheg was most likely innocent of the crimes for which he was executed,” said Wagner.

“What happened to the skull of one sepoy offers a disturbing narrative of life and death in British India that speaks directly to contemporary debates about the legacies of the Empire as well as the darker side of conflict, past and present,” he said.

In a post-Brexit era of “swelling imperial nostalgia and revisionism”, the academic feels that given Bheg’s innocence, his remains deserve a final resting place in his homeland.

According to the note found inside his skull, Bheg was about 32 years of age, 5 feet 7-and- a-half inches high, belonged to the 46th Bengal Infantry Regiment and was “by no means an ill-looking native”.

The British High Commission in New Delhi, the Royal Asiatic Society and some non-governmental organisations in India are now reportedly in talks to find a way of returning the “native” to his homeland. PTI

Kibithu (Arunachal Pradesh), April 8 Indicating fresh friction, the Chinese military strongly protested against the Indian Army’s “transgression” into the strategically sensitive Asaphila area along the disputed border in Arunachal Pradesh, but the Indian side roundly rejected the complaint.Official sources said the Chinese side raised the issue at a ‘Border Personnel Meeting’ (BPM) here on March 15 but the Indian Army dismissed it, saying that the area in the upper Subansiri region of Arunachal belonged to India and it had regularly been carrying out patrols.Sources said the Chinese side called India’s patrolling in the area a “transgression” and the Indian Army objected to the terminology. “China’s protest is surprising,” said a source, adding there were several instances of Chinese intrusions in the area, which had been taken up seriously in the past.Under the BPM mechanism, the two sides can register their protest over any incident of transgression as there are varying perceptions about the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The delegation of China’s People’s Liberation Army specifically mentioned extensive patrolling in Asaphila by Indian troops, saying such “violations” may escalate tensions.Rejecting the Chinese protest, the Indian side said its troops were aware of the alignment of the LAC and that the Army would continue to carry out patrols up to the LAC. The Chinese military specifically mentioned large-scale Indian patrolling in Asaphila near Fishtail 1 on December 21, 22 and 23 last.The Indian Army has reportedly increased war-fighting drills following the Doklam standoff.  — PTI

Jammu, April 8

Security forces on Sunday busted a terrorist hideout in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir and recovered two AK assault rifles along with some ammunition, a senior police officer said.

The hideout was unearthed during an ongoing search operation in some villages, including Gadyog, in Budhal area, Senior Superintendent of Police (Rajouri), Yougal Manhas, said.

Besides the two AK rifles, two magazines and 60 rounds of ammunition were also recovered from the hideout which was believed to be set up by terrorists when they were active in the area over a decade back, he said.

Manhas said no one was arrested in connection with the recovery during the operation which was still continuing. PTI

Some private schools even dishonoured Malala’s short trip by declaring Friday as “I am not Malala Day”, reflecting her polarising reality.

 Malala Yousafzai (Photo: AP)

Dehradun, April 1

Haridwar MP and former CM Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank’s daughter Capt Dr Shreyashi Nishank has joined the Army Medical Corps. She will be posted at Military Hospital at Roorkie in Haridwar district.   Sharing his feelings on Facebook and Twitter, Pokhriyal Nishank said he felt greatly honoured that his daughter had joined the Army Medical Corps as an officer. He also stated that daughters were no less than sons and said it was a prime responsibility to provide them best education. The former CM urged his daughter to join the Army during a trek to Kedarnath. Union MoS for Foreign Affairs and former Army chief Gen VK Singh has greeted Pokhriyal on the success of his daughter. — T